Word-initial /r/-clusters in Swedish speaking children with typical versus protracted phonological development

Abstract

The present study investigated word-initial (WI) /r/-clusters in Central Swedish-speaking children with and without protracted phonological development (PPD). Data for WI singleton /r/ and singleton and cluster /l/ served as comparisons. Participants were twelve 4-year-olds with PPD and twelve age- and gender-matched typically developing (TD) controls. Native speakers audio-recorded and transcribed 109 target single words using a Swedish phonology test with 12 WI C+/r/-clusters and three WI CC+/r/-clusters. The results showed significantly higher match scores for the TD children, a lower match proportion for the /r/ targets and for singletons compared with clusters, and differences in mismatch patterns between the groups. There were no matches for /r/-cluster targets in the PPD group, with all children except two in that group showing deletions for both /r/-cluster types. The differences in mismatch proportions and types between the PPD group and controls suggests new directions for future clinical practice.

Consonants lost: a Swedish girl with protracted phonological development

“…In Swedish children with PPD, the most common phonological pattern concerns substitution of glides (usually [j]) for liquids, especially /r/ (Nettelbladt, 1983). Depending on the age, other common phonological problems in children with PPD are deletion of word-initial weak syllables, reduction of complex syllable structures, place features in voiceless coronal fricatives (such as [anterior] and [grooved] in /s, ɕ, ʃ/), and dorsals (including /ɧ/) being realised as coronals (Lundeborg Hammarström, 2018).…”

“…Ball (2016) emphasises the importance of choosing an analysis that can guide intervention planning. A theoretical framework which provides not only a methodology for analysis, but also guides the clinician in goal selection and treatment strategies for children with unusual phonological patterns, is non-linear phonology (Bernhardt & Stemberger, 1998, 2000Lundeborg Hammarström, 2018). A non-linear analysis enables the clinician to explain mismatches at different levels of the hierarchy, and how interaction between the different levels in the hierarchical system leads to templates for different word shapes, which affect which segments can be combined in which syllables and words.…”

Introducing WCM-SE: The word complexity measure phonetically justified and adapted to Swedish

“…In Swedish words, trochaic stress pattern is the most common (e.g. de Boysson-Bardies & Vihman, 1991;Lundeborg-Hammarström, 2017) and words with late stress are relatively uncommon and are generally of foreign origin (Sigurd, 1965). Based on the crosslinguistic pattern of deletion of weakly stressed syllables, the common stress patterns of Swedish, and the fact that infants already have phonotactic knowledge of stress patterns in the native language at 9 months (Jusczyk, Cutler, & Redanz, 1993), stress on non-initial syllables is included in WCM-SE without modification.…”

“…It is also among the nine consonants not acquired among Swedish 3-year-olds (Blumenthal & Lundeborg-Hammarström, 2014). Trills are often some of the last phonemes acquired in Swedish (Lundeborg-Hammarström, 2017), and it is not unusual for Swedish-learning children with typical language development not to have established [r] at age 5 (Lundeborg-Hammarström, 2017;Nettelbladt, 2007). Since trills are among the speech sounds that are acquired last, they are added as a complexity parameter in the WCM-SE, and words containing a trill are awarded three complexity points per trill.…”

Simulating Speech Error Patterns Across Languages and Different Datasets

“… 1 The retroflex consonants /ʈ, ɖ, ɳ, ɭ/ are treated as having phonemic status in Swedish by some, see for example, Lundeborg Hammarström (2018). With this view, the Swedish and Norwegian consonant systems are more similar than indicated in the table. 2 Diphthongs are often not considered phonemic in Swedish. 3 Tonal accents are indicated in phonemic transcriptions for Swedish and Norwegian before the primary stressed syllable, with / 1 / representing accent 1, and / 2 / representing accent 2.…”